Monster Mission

The Mountjoys were not sorry about anything they had done. They were sure that Fabio had had everything he needed in their house and that in sending him to Greymarsh Towers—and paying for it—they had treated him better than any poor child from the back of beyond had a right to expect. But they did wonder whether they should tell Fabio’s mother that he had disappeared, and his other grandparents in South America.

‘I really can’t face the thought of having a lot of foreigners coming here and waving their arms,’ said Mrs Mountjoy. ‘They probably paint their faces and don’t wear shoes.’

Old Mr Mountjoy agreed. ‘Still, she is the boy’s mother. We’ll give it a few more days and then if there’s no news we’ll have to let them know.’

Both the Mountjoys and the Danbys were angry with the police. ‘You’ve gone cold on the case,’ Mrs Danby accused the superintendent.

But she was very wrong. Discovering the third kidnap and the third aunt had given the police a new and important lead. Two days after Stanley Sprott came to report that his son was missing, an ‘Aunt Myrtle’ was seen in Putney swimming baths. She had long greyish hair and an open mouth, which is a silly thing to have in a swimming bath, so it had to be her.

The police wearily pulled her in and sent an officer to Mr Sprott’s house to ask the housekeeper to come and identify her—and learnt that Mr Sprott wasn’t there.

So where was he, they wanted to know. He was supposed to be standing by in case there was news of Lambert.

At first no one would tell him, but when the policeman threatened to get a search warrant, the secretary admitted that he had gone away in his yacht.

‘That’ll be the Hurricane,’ said the superintendent thoughtfully when the officer got back to the station.

They knew a bit about Mr Sprott’s activities and his yacht.

I

think we’ll see what he’s up to. He may have got a lead on the boy.’

‘What about the other parents—it’s likely the children are all together. Should we tell them?’

‘Not yet. If we find them we’ll bring the parents out by helicopter. But we won’t say anything yet.’

The team that Stanley Sprott had sent to the chart room at the British Museum, to look for lonely islands with two islands to the east of them, had found an ancient map with three that seemed likely.

Now the Hurricane was steaming to the first of these—a place called Dooneray off the west coast of Scotland. It was a small island and there were no houses marked on it, but it seemed quite likely that the mad aunts who held his son were keeping him imprisoned in a cave.

As he paced the deck, Stanley Sprott was wondering about the ransom. Why had no one asked him for money in exchange for Lambert? Not that he’d have paid it—he’d have blown the kidnappers to hell before he wasted money like that—but it was odd. Everything was odd about this child snatch.

Though Mr Sprott was wearing a uniform—a navy cut reefer and a cap covered in gold braid—he never did any real work on the boat. He had a captain who sailed it, and two crew members to whom he kept shouting orders which they ignored. If they hadn’t, they would have run aground many a time because Mr Sprott had no real knowledge or understanding of boats.

The Hurricane had all the silly things on board that one finds on boats that are rich men’s toys: a jacuzzi with gold taps, a vast bed covered with a leopard skin and a lounge with a built-in cocktail bar.

But the boat itself wasn’t silly. She’d been a patrol boat belonging to Naval Intelligence and she had all the latest electronic aids to help her find her position. She also had something unusual; an outsize hold with reinforced sides in which Mr Sprott carried things he didn’t want people to see.

And she was armed. A heavy calibre machine gun was fitted on the stern deck which Mr Sprott said he needed in case of robbers in the Indian Ocean. And though sometimes his passengers were pretty girls who sunbathed and did nothing except giggle and drink cocktails, sometimes his passengers were not silly at all. Like the two men now who were playing cards below deck. Their names were Boris and Casimir and they came from a country where a boy who didn’t know how to use a gun by the time he was six years old wasn’t too likely to grow up.

And always, whether the Hurricane

was on a pleasure cruise or on serious business, Stanley Sprott took along his bodyguard, Des.

‘There it is,’ said the Captain, pointing to a low shape in the sea in front of them. ‘That’s Dooneray now.’

It was true that the island had no houses, but it had a whole rash of huts—new-looking, wooden ones. And moving round between the huts, and down on the shore, were people. Quite a lot of people.

‘They’re a funny colour,’ said Des, screwing up his eyes.

Des was right. The people were … pink. Quite a bright pink which caught the light and glistened a little.

The Hurricane shut down her engines. There was no pier; they would have to drop the anchor and go ashore in the dinghy.